


homeward bound

by pavonine



Category: Cable and Deadpool, Deadpool (Comics)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 16:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/676693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pavonine/pseuds/pavonine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Nate's death the second time around, Hope and Wade bond over the shared interest of trying to get over him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	homeward bound

**Author's Note:**

> For [a prompt](http://spam-monster.livejournal.com/1615.html?thread=14549583#t14549583) on the Cable and Deadpool kink meme, posted here for ease of reading and archival and whatnot. I’m still frazzled on my characterization of Hope and probably got times and events wrong and I still have no real idea of how Andrew Jackson speaks. Er.

Fillmore was easy, Arthur a snooze, and Polk had been a one-term breeze. Andrew Jackson, on the other hand, was a complete and total jackass, and he liked making Wade remember that.

You'd think a magic sword would grant you godmode status no matter who you were fighting. On the other hand, he hadn't fought a president yet who'd also moonlit as a _freaking good duelist_ in his day.

As it happened, Wade had ducked into an alleyway in Little Italy, and he really could've used a break.

"Razzum—frazzum— _sword_ ," he muttered, tapping it against a stucco wall. "Makin'—my life—ridiculous—'cause killing zombie presidents isn't weird _enough_ —"

"You out there!" Wade heard the swish and flap of a greatcoat. Jumping, he bounded swiftly off the wall and landed neatly in front of Dead Andrew Jackson, who was dual-wielding absurdly sharp swords and grinning. His teeth were stained red with what Wade sincerely hoped was his _own_ blood; as far as fun wacky plots went, cannibalistic zombie presidents would seriously be pushing it.

"Come on, you yellow-eyed scalawag," Dead Andrew Jackson snarled, "don't tell me you've forfeited the match already!"

"Think it's 'yellow-bellied,' but points for creativity!" Wade said, and swung at Dead Andrew Jackson with a heavy grunt. Andrew Jackson blocked it easily and laughed.

"Back in my day," he said, swiping at his mouth, "I utterly destroyed my first assassin. What makes you think you're any different?"

Wade shrugged. "S'my lucky day," he said, and clocked Old Hickory one.

Andrew Jackson stumbled back into the sunlit street. Rubbing his sore jaw, he blocked Wade's next few blows and scored a hit on the fourth, ramming a sword through Wade's stomach. The momentum sent Wade reeling and he flew into the window of a nice Italian restaurant.

Not good. Blood all over his thighs, jagged bits of window sticking out of his intestines. Not good, not good. This was his nicer suit, too, and on top of that his sword was gone.

Lucky day. Right.

He heard Andrew Jackson laughing, spitting indiscriminately into the street. He stalked up to Wade and pointed a non-magic but very sharp sword at Wade's throat. "A real man always finishes a duel," he sneered.

"Wonder what that makes me," a voice said, and someone knocked Andrew Jackson into a tourist shop.  

The voice belonged to someone who stuck out a friendly (?) hand. Wade took it and heaved himself up. "Uh," he said. "Thanks? But I—"

Then he got a good look at her, and his always-reliable voice caught in his throat. 

"You relax. I got this," she said, and dashed off, Wade's sword huge in her small right hand. Panicky, loud alarm bells rang in Wade's head, and they showed no signs of stopping.

Reemerging from underneath a pile of I ♥ NY T-shirts, Dead Andrew Jackson growled, which was probably undignified for a president but wholly appropriate for a zombie. "Girl," he spat. "Stay out of this."

"Who's a girl? I'm not a girl," she said. "I'm a real man, remember?" And she lunged, her sword aiming for Dead Andrew Jackson's belly—

—and it would have been very impressive if Andrew Jackson, remember, had not been an excellent duelist. He blocked, and caught off-guard, Hope was thrown to the sidewalk.

Alarm bells. Ringing. Very annoying and persistent. "Oi!" Andrew Jackson's head whipped around in time to see the punch Wade threw at him. He spun around, stumbling; Hope sprang to her feet and sent him spiraling back with a well-aimed punch of her own. Another punch, and another, and she grinned.

"Think I could do this all day!" she shouted, in between blows.

"Trust me," Wade said, "you really don't want to," and Hope punched Andrew Jackson back around, hard enough for even Wade to see the little cartoon birdies circling around his head. Wade snagged Dead Andrew Jackson and held him good and tight. "Sword! Now!"

Hope nodded quickly and snatched up the sword. She took aim, and moments later Dead Andrew Jackson slumped lifelessly (for good) in Wade's arms, the magic sword shimmering softly where it had pierced his heart.

"Finally," Wade breathed, dropping the president to the ground. "Thought he'd never give up." Hope laughed, more surprised than amused, and Wade almost smiled at her.

The alarm bells hadn't gone away, though.

Which was about when Wade realized, alarm bells and police sirens sounded an awful lot alike.

\--

"I never," Hope panted, " _ever_ , want to run like that again."

Wade was still catching his breath. His stomach was taking an annoyingly long time to heal; every time he breathed he swore he felt chunks of tissue coming loose.

"Whew." Hope slumped in the stairwell and put her head on her knees.

Which brought Wade back to the real problem. This was going to be fun.

"You," he said, standing up straight and pointing a finger at her. "Are coming with me."

Hope stared at him at length.

"Uh," Wade said, and tried to sound more authoritative. He cleared his throat. "This instant, young lady."

"Look, no offense, but I don't know who you are," Hope said, standing up—bracing herself for another fight, Wade noted, watching her stance shift, her shoulders limber up. But her comment struck an odd chord.

"You… don't?" he said, and Hope shook her head. Wade leaned back against the wall, head hitting the bricks with a thunk. "Of course. Of course he didn't. Nice, real nice."

"He who?"

Wade scowled at her. "Hi," he said, sticking out a hand. "Name's Wade. Go by Deadpool. I kill people for a living sometimes. I'm your dad's ex-best friend."

[ **Uh huh.** ]

[ _"Friend."_ ]

Hope was staring at him like he'd grown horns. Her brows drew down into a deep furrow. "My dad," she repeated.

"Yeah. Cable, Nate. Nathan Dayspring Priscilla Godblessyou, Queen of the Askani. This ringin' any bells?"

"You knew my dad." She frowned, her mouth twisted in suspicion. "Okay. Prove it."

[ **We still have Fabian's number, right?** ]

"He hated kumquats," Wade said, nodding firmly. "With a passion."

"… Okay, so maybe you did know him," Hope admitted, and Wade was tickled freaking pink to note the awe in her tone.

"Yeah," he said, dryly, and pushed off from the wall. "So you, being his very dearly adopted, are coming with yer Uncle Wade, okay?"

Hope's wondrous gaze dropped like a stone. "Or what?" she said, arching an eyebrow.

Or what, she says. Wade leaned in, like a cat that had spotted a limping, tasty canary. "Or I'll hand you right back over to the Avengers and Friends," he said, grinning.

Hope went white. "How did you—"

"Know you were running away? Know you skipped out on your foster parents and the rest of the costumes and made a break for freedom? Know you were gonna try and find your dad, or at least find a way to bring him back? I pay attention to the world around me, missy," Wade said, and to prove a point dangled Nate's dog tags he'd slipped from her neck right in front of her shocked little face.

(It should be noted, he rarely paid attention to the world around him. He'd just kept up with _Avengers vs. X-Men_ , but not everyone got the fourth wall shtick right away. If they ever did.)

"Give those back!" she cried, swiping at Wade's hand, and when that didn't work aiming a powerful kick at his kneecaps. He dodged both easily and leapt atop a dumpster.

"Listen, Hope," he said, wrapping the chain deftly around his fingers. "You don't wanna go back to Kansas, fine. I get that. But you'll get caught faster than a senator in an airport bathroom if you try an 'go it alone."

"I've done fine for myself," Hope said, crossing her arms.

"And good for frickin' you, sweetheart, but here's the thing." Wade crouched down, practically nose-to-nose with Cable's very stubborn child. "They're gonna be out there looking for you. Every last one of 'em. You're _special_ now. Meanwhile, I'm fast, I'm strong, I have my own apartment where no one comes a'knockin', and I know Manhattan a hell of a lot better than you do. So unless you _like_ toeing the line…"

He stuck out his hand again, Nate's dog tags wrapped around his palm.

 _Take it, please,_ he thought, _c'mon, I can't let you go off on your own… Nate'd kill me if I did… or it'd kill him, I'm not really sure which._

"C'mon," he added quietly, "please," and something in Hope's eyes softened.

And after a moment, tentative and unsure, she took his hand.

\--

There was a small pizza parlor in Little Italy Wade liked, mostly because costumes could drop in and the owner—widower of a mutant or something, some big superhero chick back in the eighties—never paid any mind, so long as everyone kept everything nice and quiet and trouble-free. Wade had steered Hope to a corner booth and ordered an entire pie, noting the way her eyes widened three times her size when she read the menu.

"Have you ever even had pizza before?" Wade asked her.

"A few times," Hope said, eyeing the pie the way a dog would eye a thick cut of steak. "But it was just okay, I mean—it didn't look like this."

Wade's mouth slotted into a frown. "Lemme guess. Domino's? Pizza Hut?" He scowled. "Papa John's?"

"The last one, I think."

He shook his head mournfully, and pushed the pie over to her. "Ladies first."

"You sure?"

He was sure he still had glass in his internal organs. Wade shook his head and gestured to the pie. After carefully scrutinizing the entire pizza, Wade watched her select a slice laden down with browned chunks of sausage and fat slices of pepperoni.  

It was love at first bite.

The slice was gone in under a minute. It was actually fairly impressive. Wade lifted both eyebrows, folded his arms, and sank back into the cushions of the booth.

"You really put it away, don't you," he said, and Hope nodded. "Guess they don't have much in the way of good pizza in the future, huh."

"Not really," she said, while the flaky thin crust of the second slice disappeared down her throat.  

"Try swallowing before you speak, kid. Really, I thought Nate woulda taught you manners," Wade said.

And there went the atmosphere; they weren't at the part of the story where they could gently riff on Nate without it being too raw and painful. He cringed; Hope paused with the slice halfway to her mouth.

"Uh." His brain scrambled. "So. A runaway, huh."

[ **Oh, _ace_ segue, there, champ. Real good stuff. Not awkward in the least.** ]

"Not now, _please_ ," Wade muttered, and Hope's brow creased sharply. "Uh, I mean." He cleared his throat. "You were saying?"

Hope put her half-eaten third slice down and frowned, resting her elbows on the table. Wade's comment still hadn't left her, lines of distress drawn in the set of her shoulders. "Nothing," she said, "I just… is it normal to watch television for five hours every night?" She glanced up at Wade, an expectant look on her face.

"Only if you're an amateur," Wade said, and Hope's face fell, so he backtracked pretty quickly. "Look, I'm not… I mean, yeah, sometimes. Most of the time. There's a lot of good TV out there, you know. And a lot of bad TV, too, so if you're into the whole 'make fun of bad TV shows' thing…"

Her frown grew thoughtful. "My foster parents. They didn't like to talk when they were watching something," she said. "Bad or good, I guess. They watched a lot."

"You usually save talking for the commercials, Hope. You been in this time for how long?"

"But I wanted to go _do_ something. Get to know them, or—or help people, or see if my dad… I don't know. And I was told I couldn't _do_ anything, because I was sixteen and I had school in the morning. I tried watching TV with them, but I felt so…" She paused; her eyes flickered and dimmed.  

"I'd like to buy a vowel," Wade said, after a moment. "And maybe a set of consonants."

"They were watching that." Her mouth twisted. "The show with the wheel? They were really into it, too."

"TV time is family time for a lotta people, Hope. Don't knock it too hard," Wade said. His lips quirked. "You felt what, kid, finish your sentences. And your pizza, too. Ain't right for a girl your age to be so skinny."

Hope looked down at her pizza slice. "Never mind," she said. "Don't think I can much put it into words."

"Try me." She glanced at him in surprise and he grinned at her. "Serious."

She still had doubt written into her features, but underlying them… something to do with trust, Wade hoped.

She played absently with the corner of a napkin. "There were less than two hundred mutants just a few months ago," she said slowly, words weighted, considered. "Now there's… I don't even know how many. Thousands more. Maybe even millions."

"Big number," Wade said, nodding. "Got it." He smirked at her. "Your fault fer savin' the world, kid."

"I think that's it." Her whole body leaned forward. Something entirely _other_ was animating her, old and very powerful, full of fire—her eyes glowed, lit from within. "I got the chance to help so many people—thousands, millions, billions, I don't know. I felt it, though. It…" She trailed off, and sat back into the booth, shifting underneath her own skin. "It was indescribable."

"The Phoenix Force."

She nodded, and stared out the window—at tourists and New Yorkers trudging by, drab battered collars turned up against the wind. "I think… I understood," she said quietly. "For a second of a second. I got it, finally. Whatever it was, everything just… made sense. It all felt whole. I had the power to help the world, and I've never forgotten what that felt like. Never. I've tried."

She paused, and glanced down at her hands, folded like little broken birds against the Formica tabletop. "I have a test in biology on Friday," she said, softly, her voice awfully small. "We're learning about mitosis and meiosis. A few months ago I had the fires of creation in my soul, I think, in every bone of my body, and now I'm learning about cell division. I just… I'm not sure how to go from saving the world to learning about biology. I don't know how to get it all out of my head."

Wade looked at her for a long, long moment. Then he said, "You know. You're not the only one who's saved the world before." Hope looked up at him, her eyes strangely shiny, and Wade nodded. "Yep. Prolly everyone you met in Super Smash Bros. Brawl 2012 has a coupla saved worlds in their pouches," he said.

He leaned back, counting everyone off on gloved fingers. "Spider-man. The Fantastic Four. Wolverine, well what hasn't Wolverine done. Captain America—hell, he saved the world from _non_ -super threats. Your dad…" Wade hesitated for a moment, biting his lip in consideration. "Even I've saved the world, once or twice. Mostly once."

Hope blinked at him in surprise. "With Nathan?"

"Oh, uh, actually." Wade rubbed the back of his neck. "Was referrin' to an earlier thing I did. This big alien guy was gonna come and pretty much make free will a thing of the past, and I stopped it and saved the whole world."

She peered at him, expression curious. "How?"

For half a second, Wade debated the merits of telling Hope that he'd had to kick Captain America in the balls to save the world from turning into a planet of mindless automatons. On one hand, it was mostly unbelievable.

On the other hand, taken entirely out of context, it was pretty hilarious. Maybe he'd get a smile.

So he told her.

Hope stared at him in confusion for a moment. "Are you pulling my leg?" she asked.

"Hand to Thor," Wade said solemnly.

"… Right," Hope said, but she didn't sound convinced. No smile, either, bummer. Or did an unimpressed mouth wrinkle count?

"Seriously, though? It sticks with you," Wade said, shredding a napkin like an absentminded gerbil. "Even after the fact. After you avert the apocalypse, again. You don't think about it too much when you're doin' it, but I tell you, it hits you later like a truck—you saved the world like a month ago and then all of a sudden, it's a _month later_ and you're back on the couch remarathoning _Seinfeld_."

" _Seinfeld_?"

Wade shook his head. "You can't wrap your head around it. For a moment, a _moment_ , it was all on you. And you felt like you were worth somethin'. Goin' back to normal… it don't feel right. You get pulled back into the world of channel surfing and pop culture references, an' no one else notices anythin' new about you. You helped do something _incredibly_ important, and you still have to make rent by Friday."

Hope sat very quietly in her booth. Wade wasn't sure if she was listening. Few people ever did.

[ **Maybe it runs in the family. Tolerance of Deadpools. Passive mutant power.** ]

[ _You should've been a geneticist._ ]

"Then you get to realizing," Wade said, with a small, rueful grin, "that's kinda what you saved the world _for_."

Hope frowned at him. "I'm not sure I follow, uh… Mr. Wade?"

"Just Wade. Mister. What are you, Bob?" Wade shuddered. Hope's expression stayed bewildered and Wade shook his head.

"'S the whole point of the game, Hope," he went on. "You save the world Friday night so people can go to the park with their families Saturday morning. They get to _live_ 'cause of you. That's pretty big, I think. You already helped them, but they're gonna move on with their lives, and fill them up with all the useless crap that makes their lives their _life_. No reason you shouldn't, either." And he capped it off with a loud, pointed slurp of his Mountain Dew.

Hope was still frowning, but less so. "That's… a very nice way to put it," she said, enunciating carefully; picking her words. "I'm not… I'm happy I had a part in saving the world, for everyone else. I am."

"But."

"But." Hope sighed and stared glumly at her pizza. "Maybe I just miss it. Being a hero. I don't know what to do now. I don't… I never _had_ any 'useless crap' to fill my life up with. It was just 'do this, run from that, fight evil, and don't get killed by Bishop.' It's what I know. It's _all_ I know."

Wade's mouth quirked and he shook his head again. "Biology must be tame in comparison to life with Cable, huh."

Hope nodded so fast Wade feared her neck would snap. "And everyone keeps saying, 'Just give it time, you'll get used to it,' but I think I'd like to try the hero thing again."

"Instead of high school bio."

Hope shrugged. "It's the only thing I had."

"Nate wouldn't like that."

His words landed; for a moment, Hope was stunned, before sealing the emotion away. "Nathan's not here," she said, dully; in a monotone.

"Yeah," Wade said, "but I am, so."

"You know what he'd want?"

"More 'n most," Wade admitted, surprised himself that he believed it. "Look, Hope: truce? Call it a day for now? It's your first day being a runaway, you've probably got a lot to think about."

"Second day, and I was doing pretty good, I thought—"

"A _lot_ to think about," Wade went on, "and probably no place to go, am I right?" Hope stayed perfectly silent. "Uh huh. S'what I thought."

He rolled his shoulders, lazy and leisurely. "See, it _just so happens_ that my couch is one 'a those fancy pull-out deals. Hella comfortable. Great for passing out on after a long hard day's superheroing."

Hope blinked at him. "Hella?"

It would take too long to explain San Francisco. "Anyway," Wade said smoothly, "I don't happen to have anyone else in my apartment at the moment—just me, the couch, an' a fully-stocked refrigerator… dearie me, what to do…"

Hope smiled, small and wriggly and completely genuine.

Wade grinned back, and said, "We'll get the rest of this to go then, huh. Come on, kid." And her smile didn't grow any bigger, but Wade figured, it was a start.

\--

"I don't know about this," Hope said, for the second time that evening. She wrinkled her nose and stared at the TV like it was alive, and not particularly friendly. "I really can't go out?"

"Won't be anythin' for you to do out there, kid," Wade said, slinging his arm casually around the back of his couch. "Some of the bigger names out there like to take the streets at night. You're not fast enough and you don't know the city well enough to compensate. Take the night off, all right?"

Hope's mouth slotted into a frown. "You know," she said delicately, "there's nothing really stopping me from walking out that door."

"I'm stopping you." Wade's mouth flattened into a line. "You even try _thinking_ of moving and I'll throw you in the dungeon."

"You don't have a dungeon," Hope said, but her tone wavered, and she certainly didn't look sure.

"But I do have a couch," Wade said, patting the cushions. "It's nice and warm. Guaranteed yours for a night, at least. And only if you stay."

Hope remained standing for a few seconds more. Then, finally, she sat down and settled into Wade's couch with a surly _whump_. "I'll stay," she said in defeat.

"Thank you." Wade's hand hovered over the remote control, fingers flexing like a concert pianist. The TV hummed and buzzed to life, and without another word, he got down to business.

Twenty-two minutes later and Hope had learned the names of all four major characters on _South Park._

An hour and ten minutes later, Hope knew that Ross and Rachel were a Thing, capital T.

They spent longer than Wade wanted to admit on HGTV. But two hours after that, Wade wandered into a Buffy marathon, and the remote, at last, could rest. 

"See," Wade said eventually, "TV isn't all that bad. Summerses save the world all the time, look. And they do all right for themselves afterwards."

Hope was enraptured, and didn't hear him.

Wade chuckled. It felt nice to not have to do anything more strenuous than introduce your ex's kid to a TV show.

"Ex?" Hope asked, a curious wrinkle forming between her brows.

Oh. Uh. Crap. Not that there was anything wrong with, well, that, but if she didn't know… maybe it wasn't Wade's place to tell her? It sounded moral, Nate would probably approve. Anyway, he scrambled. "Friend," he said, in a professionally-crisp tone. "Ex-bestie."

Hope frowned, and sank further into Wade's lumpy brown couch cushions.

"He really didn't talk to you about me, did he," Wade said. He was proud to admit he didn't sound resentful.

"He never told me much of anything about his life," Hope said, but she didn't seem too bitter—wistful, if anything; regretful. "Little snippets, sometimes. It wasn't important, not compared to what we were doing, but… I wish he'd told me more. I wish I'd asked more."

The dull blue light of the TV danced and flickered over her face, over the bridge of her nose and her chapped lower lip. She was staring resolutely aheaud, arms folded around her chest, barely blinking.

"He didn't tell me much, either," Wade said gently, nudging her with his elbow. "Never even knew he was picking you up until… well, until he went an' picked you up."

"What do you mean?"

Wade aimed a grin at her. "You didn't know? I diapered your ass, kid. Literally. Diapers, wet wipes, and baby powder, and not so much as a thank you from your old man."

Hope's eyes were wide, and her eyebrows formed a wide obtuse angle. "You changed my diapers?" she said. "Wait, you were my _nanny_?"

[ **Don't tell her about the maid costume. We're aiming for PG.** ]

"Your dad hadta fish you from Alaska before everyone else did," Wade said. "And he needed a little help with domestic duties, so. I got the call."

"But… you didn't stay." Hope's eyes narrowed in consideration. "You didn't come to the future with us."

[ **What, did she not read Messiah War?** ]

[ _Oh hush, she was all of_ seven _. And they also found us there, so she's technically correct._ ]

"Ah, no," Wade said, shifting uncomfortably. "I didn't."

"Why? If you were really best friends. If he trusted you enough to take care of me as a baby."

"Hope, look, Buffy!" Wade said, waving a hand wildly at the television.

"Wade." Hope _blinked_ at him.

Goddammit. That tone. Patient, but firm, and genuinely interested. All Nathan, down to the very last syllable. And he had plenty to spare.

Wade's mouth twisted and squirmed. "He… was busy," Wade said. "And I had my own thing going on. And I woulda only gotten in his way."

It wasn't the most detailed of answers, but it seemed to sate most of Hope's curiosity. She sat back into the couch. "Oh."

That little suggestion of a sad face—she was _adopted_ , turning into a little redheaded girl!Nate wasn't supposed to be possible.

[ _Neither is surviving decapitation or annoying the crap out of Galactus, but look who's talking._ ]

"Hope—"

"I wasn't telling you the whole truth," Hope said, her eyes still fixed on the television. "At the pizza place. I… lied, a little."

"Okay." Wade nodded. "Lotsa people lie. Your dad was no slouch, I'll tell you that much." He frowned. "What'd you lie about?"

"What I want to do." Hope curled her knees to her chest. "I still want to help people, but…"

"But."

"Not as some sort of 'mutant messiah,' I don't think," she said. "I don't know how to be a good messiah, Phoenix power or not. It's… I wouldn't know where to start."

Without thinking, Wade brushed a stray hair away from her cheek. She didn't notice, and his hand withdrew. "Nate did a decent job, you know," he said softly. "He had some crazy endgame half the time, but when he wasn't trying to crucify himself… I dunno. He did a few things right, I think."

Hope nodded, almost to herself. "I miss him," she said. "I find myself thinking, if Nathan were here, he wouldn’t be happy—I ran away, I want to try being a superhero for real, maybe."

"Maybe?"

Her nod was very small. "I don't know," she said. "Sometimes. And I want to go and ask him what I should do, where I'm supposed to go from here, but he's not _here_. And he would know."

Wade let the arm across the back of the couch fall to her shoulders, and was surprised and even a little grateful when her head tipped closer to his chest.

"Selfish jerk," she added, quietly. "Sacrificing himself all the time. I thought he was supposed to be smart."

"He's a huge drama queen," Wade explained, and Hope chuckled. "The hugest. Seriously, did he ever tell you about the time he turned everyone in the world pink to prove a point?"

Hope stared at him. "Pink," she said, a blank look on her face. "You're joking."

"I wish I were," Wade said, with feeling, and told her all of _If Looks Could Kill_ , if only 'cause it kept her from feeling too miserable.

And him, too, but he wasn't saying anything.  

\--

The doorbell woke Wade up with a jolt. Hope was still asleep, snoring lightly, and Wade had drool on his chin. He wiped it away, then gently extracted himself from underneath the pile of sleeping girl that had formed on his couch. Still yawning, he went to answer the door.

"Mrs. Jenson, I know, I'm sorry—turn off the TV before you pass out, or the other tenants will _complain_ —"

He stopped, because Mrs. Jenson wasn't at his door.

"Uh." Slightly sheepish, Nate rubbed the back of his neck. (He had a five o'clock shadow and bags under his eyes, and why did he have an eye patch? That was new, right?) "I'm sorry if this is a bad time."

Wade _stared_ at him.

"I tried calling, but I think you unplugged your phone, and I couldn't get ahold of your cell," Nate said, still all shuffly and awkward and—and _big_ in his doorframe, filling it from post to post. "And I didn't know any other way to reach you reliably, so…"

(Nate's metal arm was gone. Eye patch. Human arm. The alarm bells in his head were ringing in the New Year.)

"What do you want?" Wade said, and crossed his arms.

The scruffy adorableness faded, and the serious soldier Wade knew very well surfaced in its place. "I'd rather not discuss it out here," he said. "I… there's a mission."

"Important?"

"Personal," Nate said, and looked down at his scuffed boots. "Can I—"

"Whozat," Hope called, voice still thick with sleep. "Wade?"

And Wade stepped aside quickly, or Nate just might have pushed him.

"Wade, who is—" Hope trailed off, her face draining of color. Her eyes were wide with shock, and she said _his_ name carefully, like the illusion was so fragile it would break if she acknowledged it. His name broke Nate from his trance, and he bowed his head, the tiniest of grins in bloom on his lips.

"Hello, Hope," he said. His voice was rough and thick and warm. "Miss me?"

Hope stood up slowly. Crossed the room in four long strides. Faced Nate, still absorbing the fact that he was _here_ , and this probably wasn't a trick, and he was plainly not dead and had the gall to _smile_.

Hell, it was too much for _Wade_ to take in. And he'd seen Nate's resurrection Houdini before.

"Where the hell have you _been_ ," Hope breathed, her fists clenched at her sides. (Wade could sympathize; he kinda felt like punching Nate, too.) "You came back, and you never came to find me—"

The stupid smile finally left his stupid face.

"—you never even tried to call me," she said, her voice shaking. "Or did you just forget?"

Nate looked at her for a long, long time. Then without a word, he pulled her into a tight hug, arms wrapping around her skinny frame. Hope didn't even hesitate and threw her arms around his neck.

He whispered something into her ear, something that made her almost choke on a laugh, hit his arm with a balled-up fist. Wade wasn't listening. He backed out of the living room and into his bedroom, slipping inside, closing the door as quietly as he could.

The hinge creaked, but he was sure no one else noticed.

\--

There was a knock at the door, of course, because even post-mortem Nate was insufferably polite and never just barged in on someone's privacy. Wade grunted "It's open" and threw another knife across the room.

It landed just shy of its target. Nate arched a snow-white eyebrow in confusion. "Is that a poster of the United States presidents on your wall?"

A knife cleaved Grover Cleveland's head in two. "Yep."

"Aren't you Canadian?"

"My home and native land." He threw another knife, listlessly, and it bumped into the one sticking out of Zachary Taylor's eye socket and fell with a clang to the floor. "It's a thing, I'll tell you later. How'd it go with the rugrat?"

Nate sighed, deeply, stress and weariness and exhaustion all in one breath. Wade almost felt bad. "I get to thinking she's forgiven me," he said, not at all sounding sure. "Then I say something astonishingly stupid and it's right back to square one."

Sounded about right. "Sounds rough," Wade said.

Nate nodded. He closed the door deliberately and stood at the edge of Wade's room, looking for all the world like he had something important to say.

Wade waited for him to muster up the courage to say it. It was very nice of him, he thought, to wait. It wasn't like Nate deserved it.

"I wanted to thank you," he finally began. "For looking out for her. For taking her in."

Wade shrugged, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. "Someone was gonna pick her up sooner or later," he said. "Better me than a goody-two-shoes Avenger, or an X-Goon, or TMZ. At least I let _her_ decide if she wants to go to school today."

"She's going back." Nate crossed the room and sat down heavily on Wade's bed. Uninvited, but Wade decided to be hospitable. He _was_ effectively missing an arm, and therefore kind of an amputee, and Wade was already on a roll with being generous and noble today. "It doesn't have to be public school."

"X-school?"

"I don't know." Nate ran a hand through his hair. Death and resurrection really did a number on you, Wade thought, noting new wrinkles around Nate's eyes. "I want her to have a normal life."

"Kinda missed the boat on that one," Wade said, his lips quirking. "And she's kinda into the hero gig. She just doesn't wanna be a Mutant MessiahTM anymore."

"She doesn't have much choice." Nate's face was grim. "I've been trying to broker deals with media outlets—"

" _Wow_ , have you changed."

"—to keep them away from her," Nate finished. "There's only so much I can do."

Wade stared at him for a moment. "That's… nice of you," he said awkwardly. Nate made some sort of appreciative noise. "No, really. I mean. Shit, both of you, take a vacation. You deserve it."

[ **There goes the PG rating.** ]

[ _We tried, dear._ ]

Nate smiled, but it might as well have been a frown; it was rueful and small and sad. "How have you been?" he said instead.

Wade knew a segue when he saw one. "Oh, you know," he said airily. "Fighting crime, forces of evil—zombie presidents, can you imagine? Got me on the job. I even got a sword."

"I thought you had swords."

"Not a _magic_ one," Wade said, and Nate nodded and went, "Ah."

"Yeah. So I've been doing that," Wade went on. "Killing presidents, breaking the fourth wall, not being dead. The usual suspects. And I'm getting a video game, and my movie script leaked, and I've also been letting my exes know that I'm _actually not dead_ , gimme a call at 555-5555 when you can, thanks."

Nate looked appropriately guilty; his head was down and his cheeks were bright pink. _Good_ , Wade thought, _suffer._

"I see what you mean," Nate said in a low voice.

"Do you now."

"I had every intention of seeking you out."

"Uh huh. I _tooootally_ believe you."

"After I'd taken care of… business," Nate said, "yours was the first place I came to."

"To help you find Hope."

"Yes," Nate admitted, with a nod, "but you were the first person I thought to ask."

Goddammit.  

"I missed you," Nate said, after a while—after it was clear Wade didn't have an answer.

"You were dead," Wade said. The bitterness in his tone hid faint traces of hurt. "How could you miss me?"

"After," Nate said softly, and met Wade's eyes, and it hit Wade again that this was _Nate_ and Nate was _here_ , not a cyborg and with a few more wrinkles but _here_ with Wade in Wade's own apartment, and they weren't actively mad at each other, and Nate was actually maybe trying to make up for being such an asshat. "I'm… sorry I couldn't speak with you sooner than this."

God _dammit_.

Wade flipped a knife in his hand, twirling it around his fingers. "Guess you'll have to make up for lost time," he said, slowly.

Nate nodded. "Guess so."

"Too bad I'm so busy all the time now. If only you'd shown up _sooner._ "

"Perhaps… we can work something out?" Nate gave Wade a small, hopeful smile. "If you can fit me into your busy schedule—I know you've been tasked with an incredibly important job, but maybe sometime after you've completed it—"

"Oh just _shut up_ already," Wade said, exasperated, and grabbed Nate around the collar of his shirt and kissed him hard.

He tasted like mint toothpaste, and kissed exactly how Wade remembered. It was the best kiss Wade had ever had, and then Nate got into it, slowed it down and slid a hand around Wade's waist, and that was even _better._

Wade pulled back, feeling a little dazed. "Huh."

"Mm?"

"Thought the kidlet would show up. Usually does in these things. Pretty standard comedy cliché, and I don't think—" Nate was starting to smile and trying not to, and Wade eyed him with suspicion. "What?"

"Nothing," he said, but his eyes told another story, one with a much happier ending.

For another time, maybe. Wade kissed him again; much shorter, just as good. "You're staying?"

"I don't mean to impose—"

"Sucks to be you then, don't it," Wade said, and grinned wickedly, and Nate must have found it so infuriating that he _had_ to kiss it away.

Not that Wade minded or anything, much.

\--

\--


End file.
